


Burning Wheels

by Omano



Category: Dominion (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:10:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6035691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omano/pseuds/Omano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s that?” Gabriel asked softly.<br/>“Don’t you have eyes to see?!” Michael snapped, lips drawn back from his teeth. He regretted his choice of words as soon as they were out in the open. He could hear Gabriel sneer behind him.<br/>“I do have eyes, quite obviously, and now I can even see with them.  However… However, I’d much prefer to hear it from you.”</p>
<p>For a not-exactly-prompt from tumblr: No one can tell me that Michael didn't get a pair of wing tattoos sometime after Gabriel started the Apocalypse and someone needs to write that! Specially Gabriel finding out!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Wheels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyKiri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKiri/gifts).



> Well, I tried. And valiantly failed. 
> 
> This, and basically all my Dominion fics, are, have been and forever will be heavily influenced  
> by [drinkbloodlikewhine ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/profile)and [whiskeyandspite](http://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/profile)'s beautiful fics. This piece kind of relies (inspiration and motivation-wise) on [Nightmares](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4794047/chapters/10971371), but actually it's a bit more of an image I took from there. 
> 
> Go, and read it if you haven't, you won't regret it!
> 
> Please enjoy this piece of somewhat mislead prompt-fill :)  
> (In the future I'll write a proper homage to the glorious pair mentioned above, but hush. That plan's been in my head for half a year.... one day. One day my brain will cooperate with my dreams.)

 

 

They were too late. Even on massive wings that could launch them into the sky as fast as thought – they were late. By the time they got back to Vega there was no sign of Alex - or _Noma—_

Gabriel had warned him. _It’s only a matter of time before she betrays you too_ \- But he had to know better! He had to, and now…

A massive cloud of smoke and the steam of blood had settled over Vega, the city in ruins and under the rule of the General, who was present only in body if he had any luck left in his starsign. Right there, underground and surrounded by heaps of dead bodies, the odour of decay settling heavy and intoxicating on Michael’s mind he had worked himself into a long-forgotten state of Apocalyptic rage.

The howl - his own? He didn’t remember his own voice could bellow so - had withered to a vindictive hiss, faltered on his lips and slipped on the taste of iron, salt and earth still clinging to his tongue.

It took all strength Gabriel could find in his shattered mind and body to wrangle Michael to the ground. How easy - How easy it was to fall back into old patterns, where it was Gabriel’s role to save his twin from himself…

_Gabriel_.

A small gasp jerked him awake, his eyes flying open - disoriented, thoughts jumbled, tripping over each other in a chaotic mess - Michael could feel distress coil and flicker, spout blinding sparks in the void that dilated and constricted his chest. Meanwhile he couldn’t be rid of the lingering, terrible, itching heat of his simmering anger that spilled over his entire being. Then Michael realized something else too. A little caress, a brush over a fracture of a frame he would have turned into yet another scar - tissues and blood under his own fingernails - if only he hadn’t once been so foresightful to have it made in a place he couldn’t reach.

He felt more than heard Gabriel hum at his back.

Gabriel’s palm settled even and cool between Michael’s shoulder blades - the warmth of his body only a phantom sensation where he lay on the other side of the massive bed. With his thumb he pulled the edge of the sleeveless shirt more to the side, to the centre, so that Michael could feel the gentle scrape of a blunt nail.

Curiosity rippled through to him - like a slow build of a wave.

For a second Michael wondered if he could go back to sleep in a blink.

“Sloth is the last of the deadly sins I would associate with you, Michael.”

Michael sighed, long-drawn, put-upon, but tentatively he pressed back against Gabriel’s amusement. This. They needed this. Light humour, a thin veil to wrap themselves in while the world outside kept falling apart.

“You’re just too restless,” he gave it back.

Gabriel hummed again, “You could certainly help with that.”

The hint of mischief in his twin’s tone made it easier for Michael to keep the line of his shoulders relaxed.

“How so?”

“Quite simply, really. You only have to tell me what kind of mark you have on your back, little brother.”

There was a shiver that curled Michael’s spine, even just by a thought, closer to Gabriel - unconsciously thriving to be closer, to be an arch to bridge the void between them.

“Michael?”

“It’s nothing,” Michael snapped out of it. He set his gaze on the cracked wall opposite of him. “Just another scar.”

Gabriel clucked his tongue, and with that he also pulled back his hand. Michael could barely catch the displeased little sound that wanted to escape him.

“Of all the nasty things it had to be lying that rubbed off on you from your pretty bedmates. I think I’m disappointed.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “I knew my life was lacking serious drama.”

He could feel Gabriel do the exact _same_ thing. “So smart, and clever, really. Deflecting a simple answer with sarcasm - it’s unbecoming of you, brother.”

Gabriel pushed himself up on one elbow. Their collective weight shifted on the bed so that Michael couldn’t help but roll onto his back. Now more of tickling warm summer evening than the beckoning illusion of far-away campfire, the heat of the other’s body had sparks scintillate on his bare shoulder. The sensation sent a grateful shiver down his spine.

When he glanced up, laid out on his back, his chest tightened: Gabriel looked down at him - impossible starlight flickering distant and pale in his eyes. The sight brought heat to the corner of Michael’s own.

“I’m waiting.”

Michael stubbornly stared at the ceiling, counting hairline fractures and the steady in- and exhale of his brother at his side. Alight - again. Purified. _Burnt_.

Eventually he wetted his dry lips with the tip of his tongue, took a steadying breath - _I left him for this_ \- and rolled up into a sitting position. In one smooth motion Michael pulled his shirt over his head and then he remained sitting upright, back pulled straight, rigid, a canvas of smooth taut marble for Gabriel’s roaming gaze. It quickly zeroed in on the palm-sized patch of skin between Michael’s shoulders. Like a scorching beam of sunlight focused in one spot through a magnifying glass.

Gabriel didn’t reach out to touch him again. The cold air eagerly slipped between them, chilling, mirthless. Lonely.

“What’s that?” Gabriel asked instead softly. There was no shivering pang on the fine thread that had grown back between them. It had Michael’s lips stiffen - as if he had bitter poison pumped into them.

“Don’t you have eyes to see?!” Michael snapped, lips drawn back from his teeth. He regretted his choice of words as soon as they were out in the open. He could _hear_ Gabriel sneer behind him.

“I do have eyes, quite obviously, and _now_ I can even see with them.  However… However, I’d much prefer to hear it from you.”

Michael gritted his teeth; he could feel all bones in his skull grind against the other. The fine hairs raised to their end at the back of his neck, while the feathers sharp, but yet uncovered from their sheath of skin and muscle bristled. He needed a moment to ground himself. To count to ten, and even to allow a thought to drift back into the past, five years, ten, twenty, to allow the burning ache of a missing heart fill his chest instead of this flickering darkness that since then had taken up residence there.

He allowed himself to feel the buzz of the ink-spluttering gun resonate down his spine and loosen his muscles. The skin didn’t scar under the busy needles, but the world had been in great enough turmoil that the artist didn’t question it. She was happy to get a job, and also to get the tattoo done the sooner the better. Michael had wondered if she knew she was in the unique position of using an archangel as her canvas? Not that it mattered, really. All Michael cared for was the blood condensed on his skin, colouring the ink that didn’t make it under. How drop by drop it disappeared in the void left by the bond he had severed….

He counted the wings, feather by burning feather. Three, four, five...Nine, eleven. Twelve.

“ _What’s that_?” Becca had asked him, too, once but with an exasperated smile on her voice. “ _It feels like I’m seeing double. My eyes hurt_.” She traced the second outline of the conjoined ablaze wheels, her index finger coming to a halt in the middle where a smudged eye stared back at her. “ _Why would you wear something like this on your skin?_ ”

Why, indeed.

Michael couldn’t answer then. He wasn’t sure if he wanted _now_.

He had just given away his gift, practically rebelled against the entire system he had been a major pillar of for his entire existence. The reminder of their Father’s care had crawled off his skin, like a last lingering brush of a hand that was never to touch him again if he let go. The scraping sensation of teeth and nails clamped into muscles of his forearms… he wondered if those were his own teeth and nails, already poisoned by regret.

_He had left Gabriel alone to hold up Heaven on his shoulders alone._

Five years weren’t such a long time. Especially not when most of it Michael had spent fighting, spilling blood in protection of mankind - and also to fill the abyss that had opened within himself once he could no longer bear to hear Gabriel call for him. If he were to open up the casket of his chest, and invited the ocean to wash through him, the last salty drop would disappear and it wouldn’t even form a pathetic pool at the bottom of this void, shaped like his brother.

He didn’t regret saving Alex. He didn’t regret the means he had picked to protect him. The tattoos were not meant for him - but for eyes that could decipher their meaning and not selfishly cover themselves in their nostalgia-padded warmth. Michael had absolute confidence in the rightness of his decision, and yet this shapeless regret coiled around his ribs, cut through flesh between the bones and squeezed his heart numb. And in its wake a different monster approached, riding bitter winds and hissing of doubts and an increasing number of questions… _Father_ , so many questions! Like a mythical hydra, where Michael stomped on one head it just grew two from the same neck…

But on its body something simple, and painfully evident was written.

“Us...” Michael answered. He wasn’t sure if the world had grown blurry or if he was the one shaking. “I missed you.”

“Well, you only have yourself to blame for that,” Gabriel replied sharply. “How many times had I called for you? Didn’t I beg you to stay? You had to bring carnage to this world aga—” Suddenly he caught himself mid-word. The bed shifted, and Gabriel sat up too; his hand scraped across the stubble covering his cheeks and chin as he rubbed down his worn features. “I’m sorry, Michael. I’m sorry.”

Michael blinked. He was slightly surprised that he found his eyes dry.

“It’s not your fault.”

“You don’t mean that. I broke it. I- I broke…”

“It’s not your fault, Gabriel.”

Michael tried to turn, to look at his twin, because even now they had to rely more on sight than just _being_ _there_ for each other, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. So Michael remained, facing the crumbled wall of stone, heart stuttering like a bird in its cage, as Gabriel slid closer to him, his warmth now palpable - _almost_ real. The bitter puff of breath burst against his naked shoulder.

“Then tell me, Michael, whose fault is it? Tell me, because even impatient, you apparently always see more reason than I.”

Michael swallowed; his throat clicked. There it was, if he tipped his head a little to the side he could hear the roar of the monster he thought he had slain decades ago. Yet, now the hydra emerged again, with far more hissing heads than he remembered. It had turned into a scarlet beast, with seven heads and ten horns, but instead of seven crowns it wore a banner on top of one head. Michael didn’t dare to see what was written over that blood-dripping flag. He was afraid to recognize it. This was a horribly dangerous beast. One that ended up alone, burning forever, but only after it broke all its bones in a terrible fall.

“We are both to blame,” Michael said. “Your words sharpen my sword, and you hold my hand when it’s grown tired and heavy with all the blood it had spilled. And so I shoulder what you have to carry on your heart. We share our burdens, didn’t you always say just so?”

“We are both at fault, is that what you mean?” Gabriel sighed.

“That’s the best I have.”

“I’ll make to live with that,” and Gabriel pressed his scruffy cheek to Michael’s shoulder. The physical connection Michael had longed for jerked his spine a little straighter, but before he could scare Gabriel away, he quickly reached out and put a hand on his twin’s knee. He squeezed, assuring, _stay_. Gabriel exhaled, then pressed closer, nuzzling once-scarred fair skin, chest flush against the other’s arm. Two fingers a breath apart carefully traced the tattoo’s double outlines. “Your artistic visionary is seriously lacking.”

“Do you want me to echo Uriel’s words about our hopeless relationship with art?”

“We aren’t _that_ hopeless. She’s just envious of my trumpet.”

“Music to behold.”

Gabriel swatted at his back. “Cheeky,” he grumbled - Michael only smiled - and then his fingertips were back, warm on his skin. “Marked by mortal art… I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

“Jealous?”

“Maybe,” Gabriel agreed with the last syllable curling upwards with the corner of his mouth. “Should I get one of my own, though? You’ve got one wheel missing.”

This time Michael raised his gaze not to find a blank spot and keep gunpowder-like emotions in check. He simply didn’t want to lick salt from the very corner of his curling mouth.

“Nothing’s amiss,” he said, voice thick - with that he felt Gabriel’s heart miss a beat.

“Counting twelve instead of six would be too big of a blunder even for you.”

Michael shifted around, turned until he could press his smile against Gabriel’s own lopsided grin; nuzzle close to him, enjoy the burn of the stubble on his own smooth cheek until his nose brushed the other’s hairline. He heard Gabriel’s little gasps - or his own? - as if he wanted to fill his lungs with air until it was ready to burst before he took a dive, determined to touch the bottom of the deepest sea. They barely realized when their lips met, seeking, soft, first time again after hundreds had long passed. Gentle sigh from one soul to the other, accepted, then returned, a little piece from one to the other and yet familiar as their very own.

It wasn’t that difficult to ease Gabriel back onto the bed; he went, willing, with one kiss and clever fingers trailed to his back and up to his shoulder where, at the root of his wing, he was just as responsive and ticklish as Michael had remembered. The only spot where his twin could be teased into squirming, in fact.

In retaliation Gabriel raked his blunt nails along the length of Michael’s spine - drawing a pink hue around flames and wheels - and then twisted his hand in the dark hair. He pulled for good measure, but he failed altogether to force a frown over his brows. He couldn’t help but press laughter to the side of his brother’s face as Michael wriggled. Although no matter how valiantly he had fought, there was no escape from Gabriel’s embrace. Not now, not when he came back so willingly. Not now, when they were - not whole yet, not one, yet, but they _were_ , together, and what else could matter more than that?

Like two pieces of a puzzle finally put back together Michael fitted perfect and seamless in the cradle of Gabriel’s legs. The two of them lay together, lined up, joined from thighs to chest nuzzling molten gold to the other’s cheek and bathing in liquid warm sunlight trapped between their beating hearts under the canopy of Michael’s wings.

While Michael memorized his brother again through scent, hitching breaths and reverent kisses - I’m here _, we’re here_ \- Gabriel did the same through touch. His hand roamed the length of Michael’s shoulders, ghosting over scars that left pink traces no more, but they were embedded in his twin, an integral part of his armour, his belief of him being the Sword. He touched old ones, committed them to memory with a soft pang resonating in his mind; and the new ones as well, even though they were more piercing white flash with a drop of red, each, but a part of the both of them now. Reality slowly settled in his hazy, still somewhat overshadowed mind. For a second Gabriel wished they hadn’t. There were far too many scars…

There was one he did not need to touch - it would live with him through darkness and brightest day with numbing pain at the most tentative prod at its memory. Before fear could solidify the gold they had covered themselves in, turning something warm and loving, fine and almost shy at the edges into terribly glimmering weight, Gabriel wrapped his arms around Michael, his palm flat between his shoulder blades.

_…I missed you_ …

_…I missed you too_.

Michael’s breath hitched in the crook of Gabriel’s neck. In another life he would call it a broken on a small sob.

“We’ll be okay,” Gabriel murmured.

“I know.”

“Alex too.”

This time Michael only nodded. It lacked conviction - he made up for it with re-kindling anger. Before it could burst into an inferno Gabriel ran his hand through his twin’s hair, pressing a kiss to the crown, hushing him.

“We don’t live the same lives,” he said softly.

“We just might. Only delayed… It would be fair, in some horrible cosmic way.”

“You don’t mean that.” Michael only hummed - a non-committal, _doubtful_ sound. Gabriel tightened his hold around him, pressing down harder, grounding, on the tattoo. “Do you want me to encourage you to revolt? Do you want me to give you _permission_? Only if against your own clouded belief…”

“Would you?”

Gabriel fell silent.

Michael sighed, but there was no blame in it, no hurt except for his frustration at his own incapacity. He wriggled until he could fold his hands over Gabriel’s chest and lay his chin on top of them. Their eyes met, both darker, warmer, less sharp and cruel than they had been mere days ago.

“I won’t fail again.”

“You won’t.” With his thumb Gabriel brushed the shadow away from the corner of Michael’s eye. “Take on the world for your boy,” he cracked a little smile, “I’ll find a way to keep you from destroying yourself in the process.”

“Preserving yourself along the same lines.” Before Gabriel could find the indignant - _outraged_ \- words in himself to counter such blatantly rude remark Michael leaned up to press a kiss to the underside of Gabriel’s jaw. “You’re under my protection just as much as Alex is. Even if you’d argue your need for it.”

Gabriel scoffed. “I’ll have to wait for memories to grow faint before I could hope to state such arguments.”

Michael hummed softly in agreement. He laid his head back on Gabriel’s heart. Its rhythm immediately started to calm.

“We should rest. Just a little longer.”

“You called me slothful.”

“Don’t get cocky on me.”

“Aren’t we equals?”

“I’m your elder.”

“By mere thought at best.”

“Inarguable.”

A smile curled against Gabriel’s chest. “As always.”

After a short pause of silence a soft melody rumbled under Michael’s cheek. Like eternal space’s deep, or the roll of waves come ashore at night. Under the absentminded caress of his fingertips, tracing wings and red-blue flames, Gabriel slowly lulled Michael back to the confines of sleep.

 


End file.
